


P is for Pidge, Peanut butter and... *sigh* periods

by RosieClark



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Fluff, I Don't Even Know, Periods, plance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 15:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20490776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieClark/pseuds/RosieClark
Summary: Pidge hates her period almost as much as the universe hates her





	P is for Pidge, Peanut butter and... *sigh* periods

**Author's Note:**

> ...so i wrote this at like 1 in the morning, but read it after some sleep and was like "what the heck. Lets post it." 
> 
> Enjoy
> 
> Also huge thanks to Nessa for being my beta!

She’s never been able to find out exactly what beef the universe has with her, but it always seemed to find a way to mess with her; the kerberos mission, hurling her into space, all the freaking galra she has to fight on a daily basis, not to mention forcing her to pretend to be a boy for three years and having her almost tortured in a galra prison. She never did anything hugely wrong to it, not that she remembers, unless being born counts, but she’s pretty damn proud of the fact that she was born, so that’s probably not it.

Whatever she did to deserve it (or whatever she didn’t do), the universe’s personal vendetta against her is still grossly prominent, and it seems to have some sort of horrible aversion to her being happy. She didn’t know her happiness was so offensive. 

The point is that a week after Thanksgiving– the best day of her life, maybe, tied with the day she joined Voltron and the day she learned how to braid her hair by herself when it was long enough– disaster strikes, completely and utterly. It’s like the universe starts having a severe anaphylactic reaction the second it notices that she’s actually happy. 

The team has a busy schedule ahead of them– a hearty string of reconnaissance missions, intensive training lead by Kolivan and Krolia in the mornings and evenings (it’s their way of helping them, and apologizing to for stealing Keith, which they don’t really need to apologize for anyway), and nightly lessons from Shiro on the delicate art of not-blowing-things-up-on-simple-reconnaissance-missions.

So it’s clearly a perfect time for her cycle to start a week early. Clearly.

Okay, so, Katie is usually pretty good at hiding the fact that she’s on her period when she’s around the team. This is mostly because she’s an expert in the art of nutting up and just keeps her mouth shut about it, and pretending to be a dude. Or maybe it’s actually just because fortune has favored her by conveniently shutting down all intergalactic battles in the middle of every month. For whatever reason, she’s never had to deal with it before– at least, not around  _ them _ . But the game has apparently changed.

Dramatically. 

She wakes up on Tuesday morning in her workshop (Lance was always getting on her case about sleeping everywhere  _ but  _ her bed) with that telltale squirming in her abdomen and hobbles her way out of bed, and she knows right away that she’s screwed, because she’s starting to cramp.

She’s out of supplies-- her shopping trip was supposed to be this week-- and is seriously considering wadding up toilet paper when she stops. It’s like Allura’s Girl Problem senses are tingling, because the mice appear, leading her to a cabinet, where she finds what she needs. Perfect. One problem solved, a billion more to go. 

*

Coran treats it like it’s some sort of tragic illness she’s just been diagnosed with, giving her solemn looks and meaningful nods whenever she catches his eye.

“I am truly sorry for your affliction number five,” he tells her, like he’s offering his condolences. “I cannot imagine what you must be going through.” 

Katie wants to quip back or grumble or snarl or even hiss, but she just kind of nods wearily and says, “Thanks, Coran.” 

Allura’s the one who inadvertently announces it at breakfast (“Katie, perhaps it would be wiser to dine on goo more heavy in protein, since you are currently menstruating.”). From then on, Keith’s ears turn an unsightly shade of radish red in her presence and he practically cartwheels away in terror, hiding in the rafters; Hunk is inordinately enthusiastic that he gets to help Katie through this dark time; Krolia is her saving grace, surprisingly, giving Kolivan dirty looks whenever he stares suspiciously at Katie like she’s about to break for too long; Shiro wants absolutely nothing to do with it, thank you, because he knows nothing about the subject, and would not want to upset her by giving a wrong piece of advice; and Lance doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself except start blathering about the importance of plasmin in relation to the shedding of the endometrium’s lining. 

Where did he even learn that? 

It’s so horrible, she could die. 

“My deepest apologies, Katie,” Coran says again when she loses miserably to the bot during training. “Truly, I am—”

“Coran,” she replies tightly when he helps hoist her up by one hand, “I love you, I do, but I’ll kill you with my face if you don’t stop talking.” 

She immediately blinks apologetically and flounders. Coran looks wounded.

Lance spits out his soda and it dribbles down his chin as he choke-laughs into his fist. Keith's stiff as a board, Hunk is snickering, and Krolia is massaging the bridge of her nose. 

“Do you need to sit out for a while, Katie?” Krolia asks cautiously.

“No,” Katie barks back emphatically, and she totally doesn’t; at least, not until she doubles over when she’s fighting Keith, but his rambling questions about her well-being give her enough time to kick him in the midsection and bowl him over. Katie, +5. 

The universe is cackling in a corner. This is only the beginning.

*

Their first reconnaissance mission of the week, staking out a clearing in the middle of a neighboring planet where Lotor was seen approximately three times since the whole quintessence incident, is brutal. It’s humid and stuffy and the mud smells like rotten bananas and she’s been paired up with Lance, who looks torn between patting her back comfortingly and laughing his ass off. 

“So like,” he says for the fiftieth time since they’d landed an hour ago, “you’re sure you’re… y’know. Okay?”

“Lance, it’s my period,” she grinds out, stuffing her face into her hands because she can’t believe they’re having this conversation in the middle of a reconnaissance mission. “And by the way, no, I don’t need to spend the night in the med bay for observation; I’m fine!” She stops, looking at him. “Don’t you have like five sisters?” 

“Two sisters, and a whole lot of nieces,” he corrects. “ But we don’t usually talk about periods. Anyways, you cried at the Killbot Phantasm commercial last night,” Lance recalls bemusedly. “I’d say that’s a red flag.”

Apparently the sight of a few sneaky cartoon videogame characters being incinerated by the Coranic dragon had caused her great heartache the night before while she sat up with Lance and watched Friends reruns, and she’d explained tearfully through gritted teeth to him (as he hyperventilated) that it wasn’t fair because what if they had families?

“We don’t speak of that,” she growls, drawing her knees in tighter as she crouches in the bushes. Her cramps are pulverizing her. “Now or ever. Or I kill you.”

“Am I the twentieth person you’ve threatened to murder today?” he asks idly. “Besides Coran, and Keith, and Kolivan when he wasn’t listening…”

“Excuse me for hating the world,” she snaps, glowering churlishly at the ground.

She hears a shuffle in the dark beside her and glances up to see a hand holding a chocolate bar at her nose. Lance brandishes it entrancingly and she frowns. 

“That’s – from your stash,” she stammers. She doesn’t know why she’s aware of this, but Lance had a store of chocolate on the ship, only to be used on very special occasions. How he got it was above her, but she sure as heck wasn’t complaining. 

He clears his throat.

“Only for emergencies,” he replies easily. “Like my girlfriend turning into a gremlin for real.” He huffs and waves it around. “Just take it before your griping blows our cover.”

She swipes it out of his hand and tears into it, downing the whole thing faster than she’s seen him do it. The pain in her torso alleviates slightly, but she’s still got the migraine. 

“How’d you know?” she mumbles, tossing the wrapper into her quiver because she seriously doesn’t even care anymore. 

“Aren’t periods like dementors because they like, suck your soul out; only if you eat chocolate, everything’s cool?” he replies in lieu of an answer, picking at his teeth. “That's what the Mcclain men have hypothesized, anyways.” 

“Sure, Lance,” she concedes wearily.

“No, but seriously,” he adds, “Chocolate equals dopamine, and dopamine equals a happy paladin.”

“Do you think about this kind of stuff often?” she snickers.

He grins at her. 

“I always have to be on the alert, basically.” And she’s grateful that Lance’s there, really. And she’s grateful that it’s dark and quiet so that nobody sees her grimacing as she presses the butt of her bayard against her stomach.

She’s also grateful that, for once, they don’t blow anything up on a simple reconnaissance mission, unless her temper counts during the bioship flight back when Keith’s stupid enough to yank on her hair. 

*

The training simulations only get worse. By Friday--Thursday had been spent growling and spitting during something Krolia calls a mission simulator but that Lance and Hunk unanimously call laser tag-- the cramps aren’t as prevalent, but they’re still there, enough to keep her from walking properly. 

Enough to concern Kolivan. Enough to make him ask her if she’s hiding anything from the team, to which she replies no, unless her personal feminine inconveniences count as a dangerous secret, and he just sort of blinks down at her like he has no idea what she’s talking about before turning around and stalking out, braid swooping behind him. 

“There hasn’t been a young female blade yet,” Keith explains. “He’s kinda catching up on this stuff.”

“So are you, apparently,” Katie retorts snidely, and Keith flushes before skittering away. 

Hunk bakes her an enormous tray of cookies that Katie wolfs down in under ten minutes, and Lance doesn’t get a single crumb, damn it, because she deserves every last morsel of that stuff for the crap she’s had to go through this week. Before they deploy for Arusia to try to track down Ezor after her sixth escape from the blade, she spends most of her time in her room with her laptop scrolling through code perched on her abdomen. 

It’s raining there, but at least it isn’t humid; however, she has to stake out the roof of the small hut where Ezor might be popping in for medical attention, so naturally she winds up drenched. They’re spotted, naturally, and she fights a couple of glaran thugs without breaking a sweat, but she’s starving and cranky and sore, and Lance doesn’t have any spare snacks except for granola bars, and suddenly granola bars seem really gross. 

She seems really gross, actually. 

“This is so interesting to watch,” Allura squeals with enthusiasm. “Back on Altea, I never really had many close female friends, except for my servants, and they never talked about their cycles! I feel like I can learn so much about you by observing—”

“How about we don’t talk about my period, thanks?” Katie snips dryly, softening her tone as the princesses face falls slightly. “I like whatever scraps of privacy you guys are still letting me have.”

“Privacy?” Lance asks innocently.

“What’s that?” Keith adds.

“Is it a food brand?” Lance continues.

“Lance wears unicorn briefs.”

“Keith listens to One Direction.”

“Shiro likes A Goofy Movie.”

“Lance sings eighties music in his underwear!”

Katie shakes her hands at the sky and wants to scream.

*

Thanksgiving had been nice. Really,  _ really  _ nice. She and Lance, sweaty and scraped after their episode with some rouge Olkari, had sat in their respective lions on the flight back to the Castle and hadn’t said a thing at first, and she had silently been thinking to herself that if he didn’t acknowledge the fact that they’d kissed like a couple of morons and he’d blushed to the point of warming her cheeks and she’d laughed against his teeth, she would personally throw him into space. 

But when they reached the Castle, and had met in the common room, he suddenly leaned back in his seat, tilting backwards until his head was upside-down and he was smiling up at her, and she’d stared blankly back.

“You have the prettiest freaking hair,” he’d declared with a toothy grin, and she’d put a self-conscious hand on the tangled, matted, very dirty mass of curls on her head.

“What?” she’d replied eloquently. 

“Sorry, I have wanted to say that since forever,” he'd continued, sounding giddy. “Cherish my praise while you can, Pigeon. It’s the free gift you get from kissing me.”

“Wow, what a prize,” she’d bandied back sarcastically, shoving her palm against his face. 

He wrinkled his nose and grimaced and her stomach had swelled up like a balloon and Keith had chimed in, “Get a room.”

It had been quiet since then. Sometimes she’d forget that it had even happened, often until Lance would yank her aside in the hallways after missions and put his hands on either side of her face and press their lips together like it was the only thing that would ever fill him.

*

They tried to not have any missions on Saturdays, praise everything, so she finally has the opportunity to literally curl up on the couch and watch TV until two in the morning and hold the spare heating pad Hunk had found against her stomach and generally sniff disdainfully at how much her life totally sucks. The team has quieted down about her predicament, minus Coran, who still acts like he’s attending a funeral whenever he’s near her, and minus Keith, who lets out strangled cries whenever she says the word “period.” She never though the emo red paladin would be squeamish about a little blood.

They’ve all gone to bed, even Allura and Shiro, usually the last ones to crash. She has the couch all to herself and the blanket all to herself and a batch of peanut butter cookies to herself, but she’s just in agony and she can’t take any of the alien ibuprofen they found because turns out she’s allergic and it gives her hives, and how is this her life, again?

“I called the channel and asked them to censor the KBP commercial.” Lance’s voice, pouncing on her from behind with self-satisfaction that makes her stomach churn (or maybe that’s just her haywire hormones).

“How considerate of you,” she mumbled into a pillow. He comes around and plops down on the couch beside her. 

The top of her head barely brushes the side of his leg and he pats it, which makes her growl threateningly. It dissolves into a stifled whimper, though, when her abdomen clenches up with sharp pain and she curls in more tightly on herself, gritting her teeth. This is totally and completely not fair. 

Lance’s hand halts and he clears his throat a little helplessly, shifting further down onto the cushions and crossing his arms. 

“Do you really have to be here right now?” Katie grumbles after a while, pulling the blanket over her head. 

“Well, um,” he replies hesitantly, “Yes and no.”

She doesn’t say anything, hoping he’ll correctly take it as a signal to keep talking. He does.

“I mean, yes in the sense that you’re in mortal agony and shouldn’t have to go it alone, and no in the sense that I’m running a serious risk of being decapitated here,” he continues rapidly. “So I’m making a lot of sacrifices here, because, y’know, I’m a good boyfriend, obviously.”

“You really like throwing that around, don’t you?” she mutters, feeling drowsy. She can sense Lance’s satisfied grin pressing into the air around her. 

“Oh, you know it.” He ruffles her hair and she flails threateningly at him, burrowing further down into the blankets. “Okay, okay, you can go ahead and sulk and be a chick and I’ll just get out of your blast zone.”

“Please,” she half-groans, half-hisses, and she’s never let herself beg him to do anything for her before, so not only is this whole debacle totally humiliating, but horrifying as well.

Lance’s weight lifts from the couch and that’s the end of that conversation, she supposes, and she huffs tiredly before rolling over with a wince.

* 

“Is she in need of medical attention?” Coran asks solemnly, cross-legged on the edge of the bench press with his elbows resting on his knees. 

“She’ll be fine,” Lance insists lamely as Ketih fidgets nervously. Shiro is leaning against the wall, looking incredibly uncomfortable by the topic of conversation. 

Lance had gone banging on their doors to call an emergency top-secret dude meeting in the manly confines of the training room, to discuss Katie’s affliction with more worldly and  objective people than Allura and Hunk and Krolia. 

“Perhaps we should call in the Blades,” Coran muses with a somber tone, bowing his head. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Kolican grunts, and Lance jumps a little, having forgotten he was there for a second. “This happens all the time to Allura and we never say anything.”

“It does?” Keith exclaims in awe. 

“She just keeps quiet about it,” Shiro adds gruffly, folding his arms.

“Does it happen to Krolia?” Lance asks. 

“No, she’s a Galra,” Kolivan replies incredulously, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Would this qualify as an unexpected illness on the team?” Coran pipes in with heavy concern. “It has not impaired your ability to perform adequately during missions, but perhaps it—”

“Why are we talking about this?” Keith sounds pained. “Isn’t this supposed to be classified intel, or something?”

“We are merely worried about Katies well-being,” Coran explained defensively. “I have noticed that she has seemed off-kilter as of late. I had no idea that ovulation was so painful. It was hardly noticeable in Altea. I pity her deeply.” 

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Lance admonishes him. Keith shudders. 

“Can we go back to the part where we were discussing our training scores?” he begs, but nobody seems to hear him. 

“Has she been exceedingly lachrymose as well, Lance?” Coran inquires delicately. Lance splutters with laughter.

“Um, that’s a really mild way of putting it, yeah.”

“What has caused her to weep?” Coran sounds fascinating. Lance frowns, ticking things off on his fingers. 

“Commercials, mostly. Oh, and she started getting really emotional about Kaltenaker.”

Coran hums pensively, twisting his mustache, his eyebrows furrowing. “That is indeed quite worrisome.”

“Should we do something to help her?” Keith squeaks. “I mean, from a distance?” 

“I’m pretty sure she’ll be okay,” Lance guffaws, but Coran has other ideas. 

“I propose we attempt to make her as comfortable as possible until her cycle has dwindled,” he states officially, standing and beginning to pace. “We may consult Allura on the finer strategies toward this end, but it is unwise to allow a teammate to wallow in such torment.” 

Kolivan throws his hands up. “I have nothing to do with this. Just saying.”

“Guys, I really think she’s going to pull through—” Lance starts to say, but Shiro gives a tight nod before he can finish.

“You’re right, Coran,” he agrees seriously, his mouth in a hard line. “We should help her.”

“I have nothing to do with this!” Keith cries out this time, leaping up and starting to flee, but Lance grabs onto his jacket and yanks him back. 

“Team,” Coran declares, raising his head grandly. “We must commence Operation: Repair Katie.”

“Oh boy,” Lance mutters under his breath, and he wonders how long it’ll take him to write out a will.

*

“Does somebody want to explain why there’s a cake sitting on my bed?” Katie demands the next morning to the living room full of boys (and Allura and Krolia). 

“Santa?” Hunk suggests sarcastically just as Keith sprints out of the room and Lance points an accusatory finger at Coran, stifling his grin. 

Katie narrows her eyes at the lot of them before turning her attention to Coran, who doesn’t flinch. 

“It was intended as a mark of well wishes,” he explains calmly, “from your concerned teammates.”

Katie is ready, right then and there, to die. 

“That’s – that’s wonderful, Coran,” she grinds out. “I’m just – so touched. Really. But here’s what all of you can do to really help me out during this dark time.”

“What is that, number five?” Coran asks, and everyone stares attentively at her. 

Her cheeks redden and she screws her eyes shut and she screams, “SHUT UP ABOUT IT!” 

“I,” Coran flounders, but she’s already whirled around on her heel and stormed away, fuming and seething and everything in between, because this is the literal, actual worst. Ever.

All heads turn to Lance with accusing glares. He puts his hands up defenselessly, but Allura grabs him by the ear and shoves him in the direction of the hallway down which Katie has just vanished, and he has the good sense to sigh in defeat and say nothing before striding down it.

*

There’s a hesitant knocking on the door to her room that makes her migraine pound rebelliously. She groans, throwing a pillow at it, but the knock sounds again, and it makes her head throb, that she stifles back a frustrated scream. 

“Yeah, yeah,” she says as loudly as she can without agitating herself, and the door slides open. She glares at the ceiling, spread-eagle and scowling on the bed. “If you’re anyone between Lance and Lance, you’re dead meat. Fair warning.”

“I’m… occupying both ends of that spectrum,” Lance sighs, tiptoeing through the jungle of robotic parts, and sitting carefully down on the edge of the bed, tactfully away from her feet. 

“Look, babe, I’m sorry. We just wanted to… help.”

“Help me by drawing attention to my pain, yeah, thanks,” she deadpans, grabbing a pillow and dropping it onto her face. “You guys are real pals.”

“Coran was the one who was really all for it. He was legitimately concerned about your well-being.”

“Well, maybe you guys are too stupid to realize that I do this every month and I always pull through just fine without being made into comedy fodder,” she’s hit with another wave of nausea. “Ow.”

“You okay?” he asks, concern furrowing his brows.

“Yeah, just swell.” She rolls her eyes.

“Look, if this is anybody’s fault, it’s Alluras, for telling everybody,” Lance rambles, sounding flustered. “I mean, she should’ve known that it would break Keith and cause worry for everyone else. Also the fact that—”

“That I’m basically the only girl on the team who has to deal with this crap?” Katie finishes for him, because she’s well aware that Krolia does not biologically need to menstruate and that Allura fixes her cramps with Quintessence. “I feel like an idiot.” She pauses, looking at Lance pointedly. “Do not tell anyone that I said that.”

“Look, you really don’t need to be embarrassed,” Lance supplies helpfully. “Every girl goes through—”

“Oh my god!” she yells, finally twisting her body enough to sufficiently kick him in the ribs. A bit too hard, apparently, because it knocks him off the bed. 

“I’m okay,” he calls up from the floor, popping back to his feet.

“Thank you; I was so worried,” she sneers back. “You’re ridiculous. You seriously are the most ridiculous person.”

“Just trying to help,” he protests lamely, this time sitting down next to her head. She rolls away. 

“Can you just… can we not make a big deal out of this? Please?” It’s the second time she’s begged him for something in the past two days and it’s driving her crazy, but she has no choice. “And by we I mean _everybody_.”

“Yeah, sure,” he acquiesces apologetically, and she exhales wanly before lapsing into silence. “Sorry. A lot.” A beat. “Seriously.”

“Just leave me alone,” she mutters, and naturally, he doesn’t; he just passes her a melted and mutated chocolate bar from his back pocket and apparently hopes that it’ll be enough. She won’t tell him that it basically is. She feels his weight lift off the bed, and she sighs, half disappointed he had stopped distracting her, and half wishing he would stay.

Then his lips are kissing her temple, and his arms are wrapping around her, and she is leaning into his body heat, savouring the heavy warmth he was providing. Their legs tangle together and she falls asleep, her cramps and migraines forgotten as she breathes in his comforting scent.

*

She’s fine the next day, and the next month, and every month after that. She doesn’t know what was so different about that October, but the cramps don’t come anymore. Her period is never brought up by anyone again, except Allura, Hunk and Lance who always insist on holding her hand--or in Lances case  _ cuddling  _ her-- through the hard parts, even when there aren’t really any hard parts anymore. 

She knows that she’s made good friends though, and that she’s on a good team. It may have something to do with how they basically flew into terrified frenzies the moment it became clear that she was in mental and physical pain, and it may have something to do with how, yeah, they baked her a quiznacking cake because she was on her period (the Altean glyphs, Coran had dutifully explained, meant that he hoped Alfor will bless her uterus with peace). And it might have had something to do with how eerily concerned they all were with her predicament. It was a magnificently weird week all in all. And the universe probably thought that it was really hilarious, causing her so much misery and anguish and humiliation. But it’s all cool in the end, mostly. Somehow, with them, it always is. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
